The new year brings about a lot of exciting things and that includes books from some of our favorite authors. Anna Todd who you know we all love here at Fangirlish has announced she’s got a new book coming. And no, we are not talking about the After graphic novel. Although, we are still waiting patiently for that to release.
Cosmopolitan got all the details (including an excerpt which we’ll get to in a bit) and made an exclusive announcement that Anna Todd will be releasing a new book in her The Brightest Stars series. The book titled The Falling is actually now going to be the first book in The Brightest Stars series. If you remember, previously in 2019 Anna released The Brightest Stars which introduced us to new characters Karina and Kael. The Falling is an updated version of The Brightest Stars and Anna actually considers this new version to be the first book in the series.
Here’s what she had to say about The Falling:
“This is the first book of the series now.”
“During the pandemic, I had a lot of reflection into myself and my career and what my legacy will mean. I know we all have gone through our own version of this new life to adjust to, and for me, it became really clear that I have an incredible path ahead of me and I want to put all of my efforts into making this dream of a voice I have to share with the world. I was re-reading the firs Brightest Stars novel and honestly, I felt a part of myself was missing in the work. I didn’t know where that piece of me had gone, but I couldn’t find it inside the pages as I turned, and the novel ended. I picked up the second one and as I read, the feeling continued. The story I want to tell isn’t reflected in a way that I see as a part of my future and the words that I intend you to share with you, so I did something I’ve never heard of- I rewrote the series. I hope you’ll love it.”
As someone who read the first Brightest Stars, I totally get where Anna is coming from. I loved Karina and Kael’s story (still do), but I did feel like something was missing. Hearing Anna herself say that she felt like she wasn’t true to herself therefore, she decided to rewrite it the way she always intended is something we can respect. Authors work hard on the books they put out and their stories stay with us for a lifetime. We have tons of respect for Anna, and we cannot wait to revisit Karina and Kael’s journey the way Anna wanted from the very beginning.
Here’s the synopsis for The Falling:
Twenty-year old Karina is proud of the independent life she is trying to create for herself in Ft. Benning, Georgia. A dutiful officer’s daughter, supportive sister to a troubled twin brother, and caring friend to her roommate, Elodie, she always puts the needs of others ahead of her own, and prides herself on being a fixer of broken things—whether it’s the house she’s just bought or the fragmented family she works hard to keep intact.
Like anyone who has grown up around an army base, Karina also knows the background noise that follows men and women home from war. And when she meets Kael, a handsome soldier on the cusp of discharge, she’s immediately intrigued by his brooding presence and enigmatic silence. As their uncertain and unexpected friendship starts to turn into something more, Karina tries to piece together Kael’s story: he is emotionally closed off, recovering from wounds and other trauma in the aftermath of two tours in Afghanistan. In her practice as a physical therapist, Karina has a strong desire to help him heal, and though it challenges her many insecurities and anxieties, she has an equally strong desire to trust him. But that trust is fragile, like the preciousness of a soldier’s life. It can be gone in an instant. Ultimately facing a crossroads, their relationship will be tested by the one thing that Karina cannot accept, forgive, or understand.
And without further ado, here’s the beautiful cover.
So pretty, isn’t it? And we just love the theme with the stars. The Falling is set to release on July 5, 2022. In addition to this book, there are two more; The Burning and The Infinite Light of Dust still to come. We don’t have a release date for those just yet but don’t think we won’t be keeping our eyes on all the things that come our way.
We know you’re waiting for that exclusive excerpt we mentioned earlier. Here’s just a tiny bit of it. If you want the rest, you gotta head over to Cosmopolitan.com.
I woke up with my cell phone on my chest. It felt like the heat was on. I checked the time: almost four in the morning. I had to be up at eight so I could run to the grocery store, get gas, and be ready for work by ten. Thinking of my to-do list was stressing me out in the middle of the night, making my brain too awake to go right back to sleep. I rolled my T-shirt up, turned my fan on high, and lay back down, letting the cool air fill the room and brush across my skin.
Opening Facebook on my phone, I went to Elodie’s friends list and typed in Kael’s name. Nothing came up, so I searched for him again. I changed my search to “Mikael Martin” and found a profile with fewer than one hundred friends, which seemed odd to me but made sense for what I knew of him so far. I didn’t talk to 99 percent of the people I was “friends” with, but I still had almost a thousand. That seemed excessive, having a thousand people I never spoke to have access to me.
His profile picture was a group shot of Kael with three other soldiers. They were all dressed in ACUs and standing next to a big tank. Kael was grinning in the picture, maybe even laughing—that’s how bright his smile was. It was weird to see him like that, his arm around one of the guys. Maybe this was his level ten smile that I had been wondering about? I zoomed in on it. My stomach tingled. I went back to his profile, but apart from his profile picture and Fort Benning, Georgia, I couldn’t get any information from his page at all. Everything was private. I almost asked to be his friend, but it felt stalkerish to send him a Facebook request while he was sleeping on a chair in my living room.
We know you want more. Now do yourself a favor and head over to Cosmopolitan.com to read the rest like we told you too. And then preorder your copy of The Falling.